Oeuvre becomes a millionaire with Third Chance triumph
?q=100)
It took the 6-year-old mare Oeuvre a couple more starts than expected this winter and spring to reach $1 million in earnings, and late Sunday afternoon it took her the length of the long Hawthorne homestretch to run down Gray Lightning to win the $50,000 Third Chance Stakes for the third year in a row and cross that million-dollar threshold.
Four-year-old Gray Lightning exited stakes starts this season at Will Rogers Downs and Oaklawn Park, and in her Hawthorne debut shot straight to the lead under Orlando Mojica, setting splits of 22.30 and 45.76 racing in the clear. Oeuvre and jockey Jareth Loveberry stalked the leader from fourth, hunkering down along the rail on the backstretch and around the Third Chance’s one turn, Loveberry slipping inside Beehive and Sharp Hero at the five-sixteenths pole and coming into the stretch ready to challenge for the lead.
At the quarter pole Ouevre looked like a sure winner, moving to the hip of Gray Lightning, but Gray Lightning meant business Sunday, perhaps even stretching her lead by a couple feet as she went to the furlong grounds. Oeuvre inched closer from the eighth pole to the sixteenth pole, pulled alongside Gray Lightning a few strides from the finish, and stuck her neck out at the wire to win by a head.
The top two finished almost 10 lengths in front of third-place Beehive as Oeuvre ($3.80) ran six furlongs over a fast track in 1:10.62.
Chris Block trains Oeuvre for breeder Richard Perkins, and since Perkins, following Oeuvre’s 2-year-old campaign of 2021, turned the filly over to Block, Oeuvre has won 17 of 28 starts. Within that 28-race span she has won 11 stakes, sprints on turf and dirt, a turf route, and with her Sunday score in the Third Chance, Oeuvre has gone 9-9 on the Hawthorne main track.
Oeuvre is by Shackleford out of Love This Kitten, by Kitten’s Joy. She’s a millionaire now, though Oeuvre’s body of work would shine out even were she not.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.